What will the highest representative of the diocese of Lund be doing on Christmas Eve, and what relevance does Christianity really hold in the society of today? Bishop Antje Jackelén provides her views on the question of Christianity.
How will you celebrate Christmas?
– By leading both the Christmas prayers at four pm., and the Christmas night mass in Lund Cathedral. The Christmas night mass is usually great, because we all walk to the birth cave, or the stables, which the crypt has symbolically become that night. The time in between, my husband and I will celebrate with one of our daughters, our son-in-law and their son. Of course I’m looking forward to it – our first grandchild is a little one-year-old.
What is the Christian message behind the Christmas celebration?
– The message is that God became human when Jesus was born. The central message is that the most radical division we can imagine, that between the human and the divine, is being torn down by God coming to us, in a human, in a child. It’s an incredible revaluation of humanity.
Are you noticing more people coming to church during Christmas?
– The church year starts with Advent Sunday, the first Sunday in Advent, and it almost seems like we in the Church of Sweden have visitors at record levels then. Both the time of Advent and the Christmas masses are more well-attended than most other Sundays in the ecclesiastical year.
Is it particularly important to go to church during the Christmas holidays, or are there other things that are more important to do?
– Attending church is undemanding, it’s an incredible gift. In the diocese of Lund, we have a vision called grounded in grace, creative in the world. If you are safely grounded, you can also be safely creative in the world. That is why it’s important to attend church. There would be something missing if we deprived ourselves of the possibility to worship.
Does Christianity have any relevance to society today?
– That question alludes to what I said before. There is a relevance in us being grounded in grace: being grounded in something which is free, and then being creative in the world. There is a creativity that the spiritual tradition releases. I think that it’s important to realise that the Christian faith puts us in a context – that it builds a relation to other people and to the whole of creation, to ourselves and to God, or that which others might call the transcendent or the heavenly. We need this relation of faith, it makes us more complete as human beings than we would be without it. The relevance of Christianity is also present in the inspiration to learn that faith gives. And the inspiration to hope! Our time needs a lot of hope.
Text: Bengt Pettersson
Translation: Matilda Lundborg
